The fashion industry knows that makers are making their mark. Young women are raiding Value Villages and are turning old textiles into hip fashion must-haves. Doilies and old 80s T-shirts are getting cut up and remade into newly loved fashion statements. Anyone who has a teenage girl probably has some upcycled jeans project half-done in the corner of the room.
Luxury fashion, which not only leads the street, but often follows, is getting into the repurpose market. It started with Levi’s teaching Gen Z how to repair their clothes, Emirates airplane seats into trolleys, and now Coach.
A new collaboration between luxury brand Coach and textile reuse pioneer Bank & Vogue attempts to stitch those two worlds together: high fashion and the global textile waste stream. Textiles from fast fashion brands are filling up landfill. So much of it is poorly made with low-cost materials that the fashion items can’t be reused or reloved.
“This Coach collection is our love letter to denim and to American heritage pieces that only get better with time,” says Stuart Vevers, Creative Director at Coach.
“Made with post-consumer materials and re-crafted with intention, each piece is truly one of a kind, shaped by the stories it already holds and the ones you’ll add. There’s an honesty in these pieces; lived-in, love-worn, and full of character. Perfectly imperfect in all the ways we value. Guided by our imagination — and our commitment to reducing our impact on the planet.”
Developed in partnership with Bank & Vogue, a global leader in textile reuse and recycling, the capsule transforms reclaimed denim into distinctive, one-of-a-kind designs. Each garment embraces visible character and individuality, reinforcing Coach’s ongoing commitment to circular fashion and responsible design practices.
And this is where the story gets interesting for sustainability watchers: Bank & Vogue isn’t a marketing construct. It’s an actual node in the global used-clothing economy.
As co-founder of the Bank & Vogue family of companies, Steven Bethell has been a thought leader and pioneer in the post-consumer textile space for over 25 years. He has dedicated his work life to innovative and relevant solutions to the crisis of stuff. Steven and his team have traveled to over 30 countries working extensively amongst the robust second-hand markets of the world.
Steven is also the brainchild behind the largest remanufacturing plant in the world, where the circular economy for textiles is brought to life. Taking post-consumer waste and transforming it into relevant products, Steven works with big brands to help them bring their sustainability platforms to the next level.
Translation: the jeans you once donated to charity may travel continents before becoming luxury goods. Circular fashion isn’t just a design choice — it’s logistics, sorting, labour, and global material flows.
The Coach RePurposed capsule is now available in Coach stores and online.
